Plutarch Quotes
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Lamachus chid a captain for a fault; and when he had said he would do so no more, 'Sir,' said he, 'in war there is no room for a second miscarriage.' Said one to Iphicrates, 'What are ye afraid of?' 'Of all speeches,' said he, 'none is so dishonourable for a general as ‘I should not have thought of it.''
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Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous.
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Have in readiness this saying of Solon, 'But we will not give up our virtue in exchange for their wealth.'
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Once when Phocion had delivered an opinion which pleased the people,… he turned to his friend and said, 'Have I not unawares spoken some mischievous thing or other?'
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Extraordinary rains pretty generally fall after great battles.
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It is a difficult thing for a man to resist the natural necessity of mortal passions.
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Character is long-standing habit.
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As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, and unapproachable bogs.
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That proverbial saying, 'Ill news goes quick and far.'
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Diogenes the Cynic, when a little before his death he fell into a slumber, and his physician rousing him out of it asked him whether anything ailed him, wisely answered, 'Nothing, sir; only one brother anticipates another,-Sleep before Death.'
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What is bigger than an elephant? But this also is become man's plaything, and a spectacle at public solemnities; and it learns to skip, dance, and kneel.
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Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.
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Someone praising a man for his foolhardy bravery, Cato, the elder, said, ''There is a wide difference between true courage and a mere contempt of life.
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An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.
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Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.
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Our nature holds so much envy and malice that our pleasure in our own advantages is not so great as our distress at others'.
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By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as the result of a personal acquaintance, because we have obtained from their acts the best and most important means of forming an opinion about them. "What greater pleasure could'st thou gain than this?" What more valuable for the elevation of our own character?
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Philosophy is an act of living.
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To conduct great matters and never commit a fault is above the force of human nature.
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As those that pull down private houses adjoining to the temples of the gods, prop up such parts as are contiguous to them; so, in undermining bashfulness, due regard is to be had to adjacent modesty, good-nature and humanity.
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When the strong box contains no more both friends and flatterers shun the door.
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The process may seem strange and yet it is very true. I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience I had of things.
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Marius said, 'I see the cure is not worth the pain.'
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God alone is entirely exempt from all want of human virtues, that which needs least is the most absolute and divine.